New York, N.Y. -- I'm lucky, I guess, because it wasn't until after all these years of living that I experienced the kind of unfortunate exacta I did in this town on Wednesday.

First, I sat through the Syracuse-Villanova affair in the Big East Tournament that provided for me what might have been the most startling in-game momentum swing I'd ever observed, first hand . . . up close and personal . . . in the flesh . . . that sort of thing. That the Orange would at one time be up by 11 points and fully dominating and then, in the basketball blink of an eye, be trailing by 20 and nearly staggering was truly astonishing.

Second, as I trundled back to my hotel, the New Yorker, after SU's 82-63 loss to the Wildcats, it was my unhappy luck, while standing on the corner of 34th Street and 8th Avenue, to look down at my feet just in time to see a rat the size of a shaving kit scamper darn near across the tops of my shoes as it made its wiggling way to a sewer grate. That was astonishing, too.

Associated Press/Frank Franklin IIWhy is Paul Harris jumping and shouting like that? Did a rat nearly scamper across the tops of his shoes?

Frankly, it was fairly poetic that the two episodes dovetailed as they did because both the game and the rodent bore the same capacity to make me squirm. The SU-'Nova bout? I never saw that coming. The rat? Ditto. And in both instances, I wish that what I hadn't seem coming never did come.

Truth is, this Orange season -- which for all practical purposes is over at 19-13 -- deserved a better ending than that provided by the league fund-raiser. We can all tap our feet to the (tired) song about how this Syracuse club, thanks to the injuries suffered by Eric Devendorf and Andy Rautins and the defection executed by Josh Wright, was thin enough to slide through a mail slot. But the redundancy of the tune doesn't lessen the reality of the situation.

Inevitably, this 2007-'08 Orange outfit was simply too young, too inexperienced and too limited in bodies to fare better than (1) the No. 9 seed in the Big East Tournament, (2) a quick 40-minute-and-out run upon arrival in that competition and, (3) a certain return trip to the NIT. These facts shouldn't diminish the accomplishments of the seven-man rotation of Greene, Flynn, Harris, Onuaku, Ongeneat, Jardine and Jackson, four of whom are freshmen, two of whom are sophomores and one of whom is a junior-college transfer out of Belgium. Rather, they should serve to underscore those accomplishments, of which there were more than a few.

In some corners, however, this abrupt end to the dream of returning to the NCAA Tournament won't sit well. And it is there that I have some issues.

Disappointed? Sure, be all of that. Jim Boeheim is. And his players are. So, the fans have every right to follow their lead. But anger . . . finger-pointing . . . fault-finding? In the semi-words of the dearly semi-departed Buzz Shaw, "Please consider mixing other amusements into your existence."

Come on, people. What's the beef? Sure, the Orange was wretched over those last 22ish minutes at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday (which is the right of amateurs). But for a single play here or there across the season -- against Rhode Island, against Georgetown, against Connecticut, against Pittsburgh -- SU could be 23-9 on this morning with a 12-6 regular-season conference record. And the huzzahs would be ringing throughout our town, the Big East and in certain pockets of the college basketball world.

Same players . . . same coach . . . same competitive effort. It could have added up to 23-9 and the glories of the NCAA Tournament. It did dope out to 19-13 and the shrugs that is the NIT. Which speaks to the vagaries of sports. You want to invest your emotions? Well, take your chances. But don't complain, at least not too much, if your investment doesn't yield the yuks you sought.

The same does not hold, however, with a rat at your feet. One has every right to get a bit unhinged at the sight of something as creepy as that. I write (or rather, I blog) from experience.

All of that submitted, does anybody have the SU lacrosse schedule handy?